Further Reflections On Caves 1 And 11: A Response To Florentino García Martínez

10.1163/ej.9789004167841.i-552.29

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Chapter Summary

In "Old Caves and Young Caves" the author tries to distinguish sharply between two levels of certitude: on the one hand the observation of a new fundamental problem in Qumran studies and, on the other hand, two possible explanations. The author considers distinction between old and young caves a 'hard' fact until proven wrong, a hard fact in need of an explanation. The 'hard facts' observation is based on calculations and statistics of roughly 60% of all manuscripts and 100% of all dated manuscripts from the chronological list in DJD 39. There are two different types of manuscript caves, the "old caves" 1 and 4 and the "young caves" 2, 3, 5, 6, 11 with a significantly different distribution and average age of the dated manuscripts. Based on remarks by R. de Vaux, Florentino García Martínez considers the habitability of Cave 11 before the destruction of Khirbet Qumran as certain.